Personal computers (PCs) typically include hardware devices such as a processor and a memory for implementing various software programs, a principal one being a central operating environment. In turn, the operating environment, or operating system, supports the variety of other software applications such as a word processing program or a spreadsheet program. As computers have evolved, the operating systems have also evolved.
Some operating systems include a graphical user interface (GUI), described generally as a graphical operating system, which displays various information to the user as a combination of pictures and text that the user can manipulate. Generally, the graphical operating systems may display on the screen a work area known as a desktop. The desktop is an on-screen work area that uses icons and menus to simulate the top of a desk. The intent of the desktop is to make a computer easier to use by enabling users to move pictures or objects and to start and stop tasks in much the same way as they would if they were working on a physical desktop. As users add application programs to the storage area of the computer, they may create what is known as a desktop shortcut. This action merely adds an icon to the desktop that may be double-clicked by the user to initiate the application, a text or data file, or a Web page. As users personalize the desktop by using it as a space for their shortcuts, the desktop can become cluttered with shortcuts that are unused for long periods of time. The goal of personalization is thus lost as the desktop becomes filled with items that are irrelevant to the user on most occasions. It would be desirable to provide a method and system that assists users in identifying and cleaning-up the irrelevant and infrequently used shortcuts existing on a desktop, thereby effectively “re-personalizing” the desktop.
As stated above, many personal computers utilize a graphical operating system. These graphical operating systems are typically easier to use for the great majority of computer users. In such a graphical operating environment, media is typically stored in a hierarchical fashion and is organized with files of information or media stored within folders. As each file or folder is selected, a number of tasks are available to operate on the file in some way. For example, when a file is selected, the file may be moved, copied or deleted. Similarly, if a folder is selected, the folder may be copied, renamed or deleted. The number of tasks and the type of tasks available depend upon whether the item is a folder or a file and upon the type of item. As another example, different tasks may be available for electronic music files than are available for electronic picture files. The tasks available are typically provided in a drop-down menu and may also be executed by a series of known key-strokes. It has been found that with existing graphical operating systems, however, many users have trouble managing files and folders on a daily basis. Some users fail to easily accomplish even the most basic of tasks, such as moving a file to a removable disk. Part of the problem is that the relevant, available tasks or commands are buried within the drop-down menu that is not intuitive to the computer user. Computer users therefore have trouble discovering the needed commands and have difficulty in understanding how these commands relate to the selection on the screen. It would therefore be desirable to provide a system and method that allows computer users to more easily identify the tasks or commands available for a given selection.
It is also the case within a graphical operating system that computer users may from time to time install new applications on the computer. For example, a computer user may install a new computer game onto the computer. The computer user may install a desktop icon as a shortcut to the newly installed application. It may also be the case, however, that the user does not create a desktop icon as a shortcut, but merely installs the application into the hierarchical system. For example, the computer game may be installed within the directory within a “games” folder, that is itself within a “programs” folder. To access the newly installed game, the user must access the file system, then the programs folder, then the games folder, which will expose the newly installed game. This process is less than intuitive and can obscure the newly installed application from the user, thereby causing frustration to the user and limiting the user's ability to properly utilize the newly installed application. It would be desirable to provide a method and system designed to remove barriers between users and their newly installed applications.
As stated above, one of the items stored on the computer may be a series of electronic pictures. It is becoming increasingly more common for users to create and store pictures on their computers. When using a prior art graphical operating system, the pictures created are stored using the file and folder system. In other words, a series of picture files appears, and the computer user may select a particular file for full viewing on the screen as well as any further processing. Moreover, the picture files may appear with an associated “thumbnail” image, which is small representation of the picture file. When only a small number of pictures is contained within a folder, it would be desirable to view a larger representation of the picture file, as compared to the thumbnail view, without having to open the picture file itself.
When a user selects a file to open, the operating system will attempt to launch the underlying software needed to open the file for processing. For example, if the user opens a text document file, the operating system will open the word processing software associated with the text document. Similarly, if the user attempts to open an email attachment, the operating system o: will look for the underlying software needed to open the document. It may be the case, however, that the software needed to open the file is not yet installed on the computer of the user. In this instance, the operating system will return a message informing the user that the attempt to open the file failed for the reason that the necessary software was missing. This problem is solved in the prior art only by a user locating, acquiring and installing the software needed on the computer. This can be a time-consuming task and can be difficult especially for novice computer users. Novice computer users are just as likely to abandon attempts to open the file. It would be desirable to have a computer system and method that automatically located the needed software for a particular file, and that gave the computer user an option to acquire and install the located software.
In prior art graphical operating environments, files and applications are opened into rectangular spaces on the screen that are called windows. There can be one or more windows open on the display screen, with one window being active at any given time. It is also the case that an operation may begin on the computer that must be completed before other operations can continue. These operations are typically called system modal operations. When a system modal operation is ongoing, a dialog window may appear informing the user that such an operation is underway. For example, a user may select to shut down the computer, prompting a window to appear confirming that the user desires to shutdown or restart the computer. At this point the user may not attempt to work in other windows until the user finishes with the shut down window. It can be frustrating to computer users if they do not know that a system modal operation is underway, and the window that does appear does not always effectively convey this information. In other words, a user may continue to click in areas outside of the system modal information window to attempt to continue processing in other open windows. The user can become frustrated when he or she is not allowed to perform these tasks. It would be desirable to more effectively draw to the user's attention to a particular system modal dialog window so that the user is informed that the user must wait or complete the system prompted dialog prior to continuing any other operations.
In prior art graphical operating systems, it is often the case that text is displayed within a rectangular window. It is also often the case that the text assigned to a particular area does not completely fit within the designated area. In these instances the prior art systems simply truncate the text so that it will fit in the space and provide an ellipses after the truncation. For example, a file name may be longer than the allotted space for the file name underneath an icon. The file name will therefore change from FILNAMETOOLONG.01 to FILENAM . . . The use of the ellipses also requires a certain amount of space. This limits the amount of text that is provided to the user and does not convey as much information as possible to the user. It would be desirable to provide a method and system as an alternative to the use of the ellipses that both conveys to the user that an amount of text has been truncated and that conveys as much text as possible to the computer user.
The use of color in graphical operating systems has been popular for many years. In the past, however, lower color images were used, such as sixteen color images or 256 color images. The use of lower color images is caused by the number of bits available. A sixteen color image requires four bits, while a two-hundred and fifty six color image requires eight bits. It is now possible to render “true color” images, using approximately sixteen million colors, because better graphics cards are available and are being used.
In the prior art graphical operating systems, there are many instances when a button is not available to the user for one reason or another. For example, the “cut” editing button may not be available to the user, because there has not been a selection made of any material to cut. Similarly, until a selection has been cut or copied, the “paste” button is not available to the user. Many other instances exist where buttons are available only at certain points in time, when prerequisite events have been satisfied. To convey the unavailability to the user, the buttons that are unavailable are displayed in a “disabled” state. In prior art graphical operating systems, the button was disabled my taking the color out of the bitmap associated with the button, by turning the image into a two color, black and white image. The shape of the button is also used to make the button appear disabled. The black pixels define a transparency, i.e. what in the image is not rendered. The white pixels are rendered as the system defined “highlight” color, and then the white pixels are slightly offset in the system defined “shadow” color. This uses the shape of the button or other item to define it in a group of other elements, while showing it disabled. In a true color image, however, shape is no longer used to define the object. As an example, an arrow in the non-true color environment is displayed as a single element that has a distinct arrow shape. In the true color environment, the arrow might be displayed inside of a circle. Thus, the shape of the button element would be a circle, not an arrow. If the prior art techniques for rendering a disabled appearance were used, the appearance of the arrow would be completely lost, and the user would see only a disabled circle. The computer user would then be very likely to become confused as to the function of the disabled button. It would therefore be desirable to provide a method and system capable of effectively rendering a true color element on a graphical operating system to convey that the element is disabled.
In more recent graphical operating systems, there are many “idle-time” or background tasks whose execution is controlled by the operating system. For example, a disk layout optimizer may be executed as a background task. In the prior art operating systems, the methods used to determine when such background tasks are scheduled are relatively crude heuristics. As such, the background tasks will sometimes not be scheduled quickly enough, and will sometimes be scheduled too aggressively. In either instance, the scheduling may interfere with the primary or foreground task of the user. It would thus be beneficial to provide a method and system that allowed background tasks to be more effectively scheduled, such that the tasks are executed as early as possible without interfering with the other work of the user.